Stuff

The Conservative leadership election is abruptly over while a Labour leadership election begins. No doubt there will be polling on those over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime ICM put out a new voting intention poll today, with topline figures of CON 38%, LAB 30%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 15%.

The eight point lead for the Conservatives is a slightly larger Tory lead than at the general election, and was conducted over the weekend so does not yet account for any honeymoon Theresa May may or may not enjoy. During the leadership election May ruled out the opinion of an early general election, so if she keeps her word she’ll resist the temptation of an early election while Labour are at one another’s throats. If not it may be an interesting result.

ICM rolled out a couple of methodology changes for today’s poll. Firstly they’ve dropped weighting turnout based on self-reported likelihood to vote and replaced it with a turnout model based on demographics, secondly they’ve started weighting by level of political interest – the poll was also conducted online rather than by phone, which seems to be increasingly the case for ICM polls. According to ICM the impact of the changes is typically to increase Tory support by about a point and decrease Labour support by about a point. Full tabs are here.

While the the new Conservative PM comes to the office Unison (after Unite) thinks that Corbyn needs to be on the ballot. This doesn’t sound good for my-feathers-are-wer-I-can’t-fly Eagle.

One of my problems is that I really can’t draw conclusions. I think there is a strong opportunity for a lefty SD message (certainly in Durham), but whether they would turn up at a GE – I don’t know. If they do, Corbyn actually has a (long) chance. If they don’t … Then it really doesn’t matter whom the LP puts up.

Mr Nameless went to Hemsworth for campaigning. I know the town quite well, so I’m looking for his (unbiased :-)) views.

Do you think Jeremy Corbyn is doing well or badly as leader of the Labour Party? (Well/Badly)

Unite: 32/66
Unison: 32/64
GMB: 32/66
CWU: 37/61
USDAW: 37/58

Intriguing to see USDAW members give strongest backing, given their right wing reputation as a union (relatively).

If Jeremy Corbyn was replaced as leader of the Labour Party, how likely or unlikely do you think it is that they would win the next general election? (likely/unlikely)

Unite: 29/55
Unison: 35/45
GMB: 37/47
CWU: 34/55
USDAW: 39/44

This bears out USDAW’s reputation a little more, though does raise the question of why more of them support his leadership. A very polarised membership, perhaps.

Do you think Jeremy Corbyn should or should not continue as leader of the Labour Party and fight the next General Election? (should/should not):

Unite: 35/58
Unison: 29/58
GMB: 34/60
CWU: 30/62
USDAW: 27/61

This polling may go some way towards explaining the choice of Eagle as a challenger. She’s always been pro-union, and this base which appears to be anti-Corbyn may be where his opposition hope to recruit members.

The figures suggest an early election would go well for the Tories (and they’ve got to be tempted).

However, part of the new team’s appeal is the sensible get down to work approach. Calling an election before doing any work would immediately remove that part of the appeal: they need to demonstrate it, not just look like it.

I can imagine they might try for an election in the Spring, if things are going well. But it would also be difficult mid-way through the EU negotiations – so I think there won’t be an election for several years (caveat: I’m always wrong).

On an unchanged methodological basis it would seem that theTory lead would be 6% rather than 8% – a touch lower than May 2015. A run of polls giving the Tories a substantial lead would be almost certain to make Labour determined to frustrate any attempt to call an early election. As it is, statements already made by May and other leading Tories denying any such intent make it pretty difficult to row back.

With the Tory leadership election being curtailed, Theresa could easily use the reason of not having her own mandate to reconsider calling an early GE.
Considering the present state of Labour and Libdems, the temptation to improve on a small majority of 12 might be overwhelming.

How on earth is Trade Unionists polling 2 to 1 against him leading the party and 2 to 1 believing he is performing badly as leader ‘quite positive’ for him?
The adjectives I would choose would be something like ‘disastrous’ or ‘B awful’

Since its difficult to do much about immigration without impacting on banks, The longer things go without anything much being done about immigration, the more likely it might be an issue in the polls. So you might think an early election would have that going for it.

If Theresa May did that she would be labelled as blatantly dishonest right at the outset of her time in office – given that she has already said that she sees no need for an election soon . Moreover, Labour would be unlikely in such circumstances to co-operate in facilitating the election being called.

and they’re a bit odd. The poll wasn’t actually commissioned for Unite, as I assumed (though they’ve just done one for them on Nursing). It’s actually attributed to ‘Election Data Survey”, which actually linked to a website run by Ian Warren (election-data.co.uk) which is mainly concerned with attacking Corbyn and those associated with him.

Unite themselves are not happy and wrote to the Guardian (who naturally had been making much of the poll) complaining about the coverage, to which YouGov’s Stephan Shakespeare has recently responded:

though it doesn’t really answer why they didn’t ask Unite for their demographics (especially as they were already working with them). And the demographics look very odd. The table comes with a warning:

This data is unweighted and therefore may not be fully representative of Unite members.
Respondents are all members of the YouGov’s online panel and have told us they are members of the Unite union.
The poll is unweighted as there is no available information on the demographics of Unite’s members. The gender breakdown is in line with Unite’s latest submission to the Trade Union Certifications. Officer.

which might have been better included in the Guardian’s coverage. Two things stand out – firstly the obvious, but unsaid one that many Unite members are not Labour voters; and there was no attempt to find out if members paid the political levy or not and so could vote in a leadership contest. The second is that the sample looks extremely old, with 47% being over 55 and only 27% under. How old the other 199 (26%) were I have no idea – even though YouGov should have their panellists birthdates on file.

Whether the same things would apply to the other Unions discussed we don’t know – but I don’t get the feeling that this is a completely unbiased source and there may be problems in the balance of the dataset.

YouGov surveyed 1,221 members of trade unions affiliated with the Labour Party. YouGov’s panel of 800,000 UK adults are profiled on thousands of demographic and attitudinal variables each year. Using this method YouGov have been able to accurately predict the last four leadership elections for political parties within 1%. No detailed demographic details of union members currently exists in the public domain. YouGov used data from the trade union returns registered at gov.uk and the TUC Directory (here) to ensure the makeup of the sample was representative of gender within each union as well as representative of the relative sizes of each union.

“Since its difficult to do much about immigration without impacting on banks, The longer things go without anything much being done about immigration, the more likely it might be an issue in the polls. So you might think an early election would have that going for it.”

Sorry to be a grade A dummy but I dont immediately see the connection between immigration and the banks.

I do think immigration will continue to be the biggest issue within public life for some time to come.

I’ve got to say that doesnt look good for Corbyn. However, i don’t see any demographic breakdown, i don’t see any voter id or how they voted at the last election. I’ll just point out that my boyfreind is a member of a trade union, he aint voting for Corbyn but then he wouldn’t vote for any labour leader

The balance of the dataset being a potentially fair criticism (though justifiable given the presumed reluctance of unions to give up data that might undermine their General Secretary’s position), I think the commissioner of the poll is unlikely to have affected the outcome.

As Anthony’s said before, the political polls are window dressing, the big bucks comes from corporate market research work. As such, they’ve got a vested interest in not being biased, simply because their accuracy is their selling point.

Section 2 of the Act provides for two ways in which a general election can be held before the end of this five-year period:
If the House of Commons resolves “That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government”, an early general election is held, unless the House of Commons subsequently resolves “That this House has confidence in Her Majesty’s Government”. This second resolution must be made within fourteen days of the first.
If the House of Commons, with the support of two-thirds of its total membership (including vacant seats), resolves “That there shall be an early parliamentary general election”.
In either of these two cases, the Monarch (on the recommendation of the prime minister) appoints the date of the new election by proclamation. Parliament is then dissolved 25 working days before that date.

I can see a remote possibility of the first if the government does not pursue Brexit seriously enough to satisfy some of its backbenchers, AND the opposition parties are prepared to bring one about, but the idea that the PM can time an election to suit re-electing the government with an increased majority is now a bit fanciful. Method 2 needs 434 votes IIRC – (not sure if the Speaker counts) and so needs Labour support. Would they really risk it any time soon?

Well, reading as much as it is available on metholology, the trade union poll is barely better than a daily express poll on BST. I wonder what Anthony’s comment would be.

No votIng intention, no properly (verifiably) formulated questions for a decision-making situation. I have no doubt that about half of the members of these unions don’t care – but this is a very different thing compared to the “analysis” – spinning really.

Many Labourites will know that the polling will likely be influenced by the media, who will big up those like Blair with a more neolib agenda, and harry the likes of Corbyn.

But they’re no longer willing to tolerate neoliberalism to get elected. Thus the hope is to have someone who over time can sell the message more effectively regardless of the mainstream media, perhaps using social media etc., And continuing to increase the membership etc.

The Connection with immigration and banking is down to something called “passporting” where UK companies are allowed to provide financial services for pensions etc denominated in Euros. Without this arrangement our companies are not allowed to touch Euro based pensions.

How this is connected to immigration is the single market. Being a member of the single market means we cannot be discriminated against and so we provide financial services across the who of the EU. If we were to lose this right we’d have to set up EU based subsidiaries which would move jobs and tax revenue to the likes of Frankfurt. The tax loss from this sector alone would dwarf our net contribution to the EU.

The EUs current position is that if you are a member of the single market you have to offer the four freedoms (goods, capital, services and labour), which includes the freedom to work. They are pretty consistent about this and saying the UK cannot take the bits it wants, which they describe as “a la carte Europe”.

Their position might change but if it doesn’t and we refuse to accept the free movement of labour and they refuse to allow us the freedom to offer financial services, there would be a pretty big hit to the treasury.

It is being reported that he has the nominations and is deciding whether the declare after the NEC’s decision on Corbyn tomorrow. It appears therefore that he will stand if Corbyn is not on the ballot but not otherwise.

Many in Labour will know that the polling will likely be influenced by the media, who will big up those like Blair with a more neolib stance, and harry the likes of Corbyn.

But they’re no longer willing to tolerate neoliberalism to get elected. Thus the hope is to have someone who over time can sell the message more effectively regardless of the mainstream media, perhaps using social media etc., And continuing to increase the membership etc.

Thanks for getting back to me with good explanations about the link between banking and immigration.

Im interested to know who holds which cards in the battle of reducing freedom of movement versus access to the single market as I believe this will be the determining factor in the success/failure of the new government under Theresa May.

1) UKIP holding steady at 15% despite fieldwork being after Farage’s resignation.
2) I had a look at the social class breakdown in Tables 2 and 3. The largest party in ABC1C2 was Tory, and DE was Labour. Not too surprising, but UKIP were a clear second in C2 – skilled manual workers. You can see why Labour have lost touch with their voters. University educated political professionals will have little in common with unskilled workers.